Gardening and Recipes

The Koan "No"

At Home in the World

Rachel Mansfield-Howlett, Roshi

This commentary first appeared in The Book of Mu: Essential Writings on Zen’s Most Important Koan.

Note: The koan "Mu" appears as the first koan in the koan collection, The Gateless Barrier. It has been traditionally used as THE initiation koan for new students and it has rightly gained a reputation for being more than a bit of a stumper. It is not uncommon for a person to spend several years with this koan before their responses are accepted by the teacher and they are given another koan. Modernly, in the Pacific Zen School, Mu is probably not the first koan you will encounter. We find that when folks are given a chance to work with other koans in the curriculum they get more a sense of the lay of the land and the whole thing doesn't seem quite so daunting. Introducing koans in this way, people find they can readily experience the insight koan practice offers.But if you wind up getting serious about studying koans with an authorized teacher you will inevitably be given this one. James and Melissa put this book together to provide a little window into the different ways that people have approached the koan Mu.

The
Case:A traveler of the Way once asked Chao-chou, “Does
a dog have Buddha nature or not?” Chao-chou said, “Mu.”

The
koan “No” or “Mu” is a good, big initiation koan that transforms your idea of
who you are and your relationship to everything around you. It’s been used for
about a thousand years to help people find out about their own light.

The
setup for the koan “No” is that a student asks, “Does a dog have Buddha nature
or not?” and the teacher says, “No.”

What
I take from the question about the dog is this, when you begin a quest you find you're often
just groping around in the dark. You don’t even
know what to ask, or what to explore, or how to get a grip on an approach, and that such cluelessness is traditional, and even, necessary.

So,
there’s no such thing as a bad question. With any true journey, it’s not so
much about the quality of the question, as the sincerity of the person who
asks. There is a saying, “What is Buddha?” and the response is, “The heart of
the one who asks is Buddha.” The
sincerity of just asking this question opens something, allows a possibility
that wasn’t there before and moves us closer in.

Other
famous koans like Yunmen’s, “Everyday is a Good Day” or Linji’s, “There is
Nothing I Dislike” are examples of koans that can radically change your
perceptions. But even these big koans may seem more approachable because they
have a surface level of meaning. “No”
doesn’t have much of a handle. It’s features are not very graspable; it’s a
difficult koan to both enter and to navigate through. That of course is its
strength, that it is not amenable to our usual artifices and strategies. “No”
involves a process of working with your mind, without a map telling you how to
go about doing that.

Zhaozhou’s
koan takes away what you think. He doesn’t value your opinions and you might
find that you don’t either, which is good because they are a weight to carry
around. There are two versions of this koan and the question, “Does a dog have
Buddha nature or not?” Later on the same teacher responds with a different
answer when asked, “Does a dog have Buddha nature or not?” He answers, “Yes.” In
one case the response is “Yes” and in the other “No.” “No” is more famous
because it goes against what the sutras say, and if you are of a mind to
believe the sutras, that just makes it more interesting. But if you were to
work with “Yes” it would be just as effective. “Does a dog have Buddha nature?”
“Yes!” “Does a dog have Buddha
nature?”“No!” Can you can tell that
Zhaozhou doesn’t care about your views?

I
was also compelled towards the koan “No” because it had a reputation of being a
koan that would defeat you. I got hooked on the challenge and I was lucky too
in having a teacher who would stay the course with me. I think one must have an authorized teacher to work with in order to even consider working with "No."

And I
was drawn to the koan way because I thought it operated outside the known
ways of doing things. It seemed to be connected with a knowledge contained inside
the immediacy of life. I found the koan path also touched an area of my life I
had a hard time reaching into by intention—the place of trust, intuition and
creativity. The laughter coming out of the teacher’s interview room told
me that this path included a deep sense of play and an interchange which
encouraged a view I subscribed to—and which was echoed in the wonderful stories
of the old Zen teachers’ antics I grew up on—that life was better described in
the ridiculous than the tragic.

There
is a koan towards the end of the curriculum that says:

At midnight before the moon rises

don’t be surprised if, without recognizing it,

you meet a face familiar from the past

It’s a passage that offers us an intriguing
sense of a remembrance of awakening while still being submerged in delusion. You
meet something true but can’t quite make it out. That’s how I felt at the
beginning of my koan work. I experienced this recognition and it seemed I could
touch it if only I could discover how.

Working
with No

When
I undertook this koan I read the commentary on “No” and the injunction to sit
as if “your hair were on fire!” or as a hot ball of fire that you could not
spit or swallow. This was dramatic, and somewhat entertaining, but I didn’t
understand how I could go about meditating like this.

Perhaps
my teacher understood and trusted the innate quality of Buddha nature; in any
event, he offered me a different kind of encouragement, which was: to follow your nose! I had no inkling of
what this would entail but I later found it to be powerful advice I am still
grateful for and it is one that I now offer to my students. It also mirrored my own understanding of what might be possible
if I approached the practice in the skin I was in rather trying to adopt
someone else’s method or practice. It called up that aspect of
remembering the way, that intriguing sense that it was something I had known
for a long time, a promise that was barely on the edge of my consciousness.

When
I began teaching koans, one of the most interesting and beautiful things was
immediately obvious – each person’s path looks different and holds its own
wisdom. An artist’s mind is different from an engineer’s. The discovery of
wisdom through those eyes is quite different, surprising, and appropriate to
its own way. This is very important to realize from the get-go because it
interrupts any thoughts you might have about “gaining” or the tendency to
compare your practice with another’s – to neither’s benefit.

Field Effects

At
first I worked with “No” in a wide field, allowing the koan to enter in
whatever way it would, not holding on too tightly to anything. I basically just
threw myself at the koan and little phrases or bit of songs would come to me,
unbidden. I took these things as being part of the field of the koan and I
remember meditating with these fragments as they arose and trying to not know
or explain too much about anything: “neither lost nor saved” “not this or that”
“nothing lost or gained” were phrases that just appeared. In my life, a sense
of not overrating my condition and opinions started to show its influence.

Cutting Through

The
slash and burn meditation technique has its adherents, and although it’s hard to
get all the way using this technique, I have to admit that it had its value in
the early days of working with “No.” I held a lot of opinions and judgments about
the way things were supposed to be and the weed-whacking approach was helpful in
cutting through some of them. The way it works is this: whatever isn’t the koan
is out, not worthy of any consideration whatsoever. It’s just “No” on every
station, all night, all day 24-7, no variation. If another thought, feeling or
sensation enters, you just put it aside and come back to “No.” It’s an intense
concentration practice, revealing
a kind of bright certainty. This practice developed my ability to sit
through and not be too distracted by things. In my life, I noticed I felt
released from the social pressure of having to respond to certain situations in
the reflexive way I always had. It was if a new brain circuitry was forming.

Over time,
I saw that there’s not much need to suppress thoughts and feelings because
they’re just things arising in a very large field that is filled with many
other things, too. And naturally, without having to engineer it, they become
less compelling; your attention isn’t captured so much by them, and they grow
quieter on their own. Thoughts and feelings are welcome, but now they’re like travelers
to whom you offer hospitality but not permission to build a fire on the living
room rug. You no longer take these visitors at face value; you question and
wonder.

Sitting Through

Where’s
your koan when you’re tired and sleepy in the afternoon? It’s just tired sleepy
“No.” I found if I continued to sit through, my tiredness would actually show
me the way through and the koan would be gently waiting for me on the other
side. This allowed me to see the ephemeral nature of conditioned states. I felt
the freedom of coming unhooked from my condition; what was happening in my mind
was just something happening in my mind.

I
realized I often refrained from life if it contained uncomfortable or unpleasant
states and I saw that I didn’t have to hold back any more. It’s cool not to
hold your life hostage to your comfort and to be willing to meet whatever
comes. The idea of what a bad state was began to blur and I was more willing to
live in the middle of life rather than just in the margins, in the areas I used
to call good.

Eventually
we just start to accept. Not only do we not dislike our circumstances, we do
not dislike our own states of mind, which is the key thing. We begin to think,
“Fortunately, I don’t get it yet.” “Fortunately, my life is thus.” And if we
forgive life for not being what we told it to be, or expected, or wished, or
longed for it to be, we forgive ourselves for not being what we might have been
also. The dissonant gap between the way we thought things should be and the way
things are, narrows. Then we can be what we and all things are, which is
boundless.

Show Me

During
the private interview with the teacher, two words sometimes strike fear into a
student’s heart. That’s when the teacher says, “show me.” This is an invitation
to present the koan without words or explanation. During one encounter with the
teacher I made an attempt to explain my understanding of “No” instead of just
presenting the koan and was told, “Don’t try and make the room safe for your
presentation.” This helped me to be more willing to take risks, to act directly
without thought and to allow something unstructured to occur.

The
presentation can also be understood as asking where in the body the wisdom of
the koan resides. Folks sometimes balk at this phase of koan work and see it as
a kind of pantomiming of the koan. That’s not it. There is a possibility
of awakening in the moment of presentation if we really give ourselves over to
it. There’s a koan that is traditionally presented as just falling down.
Between the time you are standing and the moment when you hit the ground,
there’s an opportunity for the wisdom of the koan to make itself known. It’s a
response that can come through us when we’re able to get out of the way. Time
inside the interview room is like no other, the teacher holds open the
possibility that awakening can happen in any moment, including this one.

Including Everything That Happens

After
the period of clearing away I wasn’t as plagued by the imposition of my
thoughts onto the meditation and I became more interested in including what was
happening into the meditation, instead of excluding them. Whatever arises
that’s it, that’s “No” too, that’s an expression of the koan.

I
worked with this as an image of a giant bowl in which all of my experiences
could reside, whatever happened was included in the “No” bowl. It became a
container in which many things were allowed without my needing to form an
opinion or judgment about them. What arises from this kind of practice is not
merely an accumulation of experiences but a generous openness about where the
gate is. It’s always right here right now, with this thought, with this
feeling, with this person in front of me, with this event in my life, with this
age, with this pain or hurt or joy or sorrow, with this condition of the world.

There
is an openhandness that allows and includes all of life, all of ourselves, not
only those aspects which we feel are worthy of being placed on the altar.

The
clarity comes from seeing the moment of awakening embodied in different
circumstances, from hearing it in different voices, it’s not so insistent on
the path looking a particular way. Because the field of practice is always just
this life, there isn’t a distinction between what is practice and what is not. Life
is the palette of practice.

Zhaozhou’s
koan is gesturing toward embracing your current state. I think this koan is
very deeply about the ways we reject experience as not being correct or
appropriate. And if you are making a fundamental judgment that this moment
isn’t right, you have a tendency to harden around that thought. Ideas can’t get
in or out and it’s a static situation. But if you go into the heart of that
refusal, it becomes a gate in which life can enter in and we can pass through. Go
towards the frightening thing and you find that it holds a blessing. It’s a
recognition that thoughts are just thoughts and the koan rises to explode them.

Part
of freedom is about not thinking, “It’s not here.” When you stop thinking,
“It’s not here,” you start noticing all the ways it is here. And the more you
notice how much it’s here, the more what the old teachers speak about as
accumulated karma—the stacked up disappointments of your life—starts falling
from you.

I
became a fan of this technique; it’s rich, and it especially encourages the
integration process, moving the practice on the cushion into our lives. I
experienced the light going both ways—the wisdom of the koan shining into my
life and my life informing the koan.

Leaving the Realm of the Known

This
is the land where mountains aren’t mountains and rivers aren’t rivers and
things get strange, but it’s ok. I was so far into the process at this point
that I didn’t mind if things were beginning to lose their usual associations.
There was a truth to this experience and that was all that mattered. I could
see that moving towards authenticity held its own freedom and I was game for
whatever was in store. An old koan speaks to this place:

Blossoms on a withered tree, a spring beyond the
ages,

Riding backwards on a jade elephant, chasing the
dragon deer.

As a young person I worked at a beautiful landmark nursery in Sonoma,
California for many years and developed a great love of big trees. We used the
trees that grew there as directional devices for how to get around the nursery.
A sprawling giant weeping willow centered the nursery; we dubbed an avenue of Japanese
maples and ginkgos “Shady Lane”; the “South End” held a tall row of brilliant
yellow poplars; and there were many trees throughout the nursery that had grown
through their pots to become full size trees yet still held the square of roots
where their pots had once been. This became one of the significant places in my
dream life and showed the role trees play in my life.

I had a dream during this time with “No” where
all of the trees in the nursery had been cut down. Where my beloved friends
once stood, there was a vast hillside of stumps. Yet, just over the rise of the
hill, I could see a magnificent long vista that I had never known was there
because the trees had obscured my view. I was awed by what I saw; the sky was
vivid with brilliant streaks of orange, yellow, and pink. Through my tears, I
saw something that I had never imagined before. I understood this dream as
leaving the familiar place beside the hearth to encounter something new.

Periods of Drought

There
are times when the practice suddenly feels dry, the meditation is uninspired,
our knees hurt, we’ve run out of ways to entertain ourselves, there’s an
obnoxious fly droning somewhere, and it isn’t funny anymore. I learned to walk
through these desert places, and even to welcome them. I realized that dry
places are way stations where we have exhausted the known and are waiting for the
new. There is a patience and kindness with ourselves that develops when we’re
willing to wait through like this. We can’t know what timeframe is appropriate,
and it doesn’t matter anyhow, our life is always happening right here while
we’re hoping for something else to happen. If I just sat not wanting very much
to happen, little things would open up, and I found that just being given this
task of sitting can itself be a form of grace.

Giving up or Giving In

At
the end of a year’s intensive work with “No”, I remember finishing winter
sesshin and standing pensively in the dining hall looking out onto the magnificent
redwoods steeped in mist on the last morning of retreat. I felt I had given it
my all and it wasn’t enough; my responses to the koan hadn’t been accepted by
the teacher. I was at an utter loss. I remember vividly the feeling of having
spent every ounce I had. It seemed there was nothing for it but to give up the
possibility of getting through this koan and to continue the practice without hope.
I don’t know whether this is an essential step but it seemed to be for me. I
gave up thoughts of achieving, acquiring, or wishing for something different
than what I had, and this turned out to be the key for the next phase of
practice.

At Home in the World

After
I had given up, I just kept going and I started having small but real experiences
in which the separation between me and the things around me lessened. At other
times, I would become whatever I was looking at, a rock, a shirt, a face.
Everything seemed to happen without me needing to do anything about it. The
walls met each other perfectly. There were many experiences like that.

Then,
at a retreat, I was following along in the walking meditation line outside the
main meditation hall in the parking area. The person in front of me was wearing
a black silk shirt and I became interested in the finish of the cloth. The
thought crossed my mind, “This is a regal procession.” And that was it! The
redwood branches parted in front of my eyes to reveal a whitish, granular,
particulate quality to the light which seemed to be everywhere. It was akin to
seeing between the atoms. There was no past, present, future – no me, no
nothing. I don’t know how long it lasted, but before I returned all together, I
requested a phrase. I received two words “No Other.” That was all. The experience
seemed to come about as an accident and I’m not sure that the details of the
experience are the point. I thought of some of the things other people had
said, like “From now on I won’t doubt the words of a famous old teacher” or
“After all there’s not much to the Dharma.” And for me, “No other” was the only
expression. I experienced this as a deep familiarity and kinship with life. It
was impossible to feel alone or apart, and the questions I had about what use
this life was and what my place in it was, seemed to fall away. Why it all is became less important than
the marvel of that it is. Then the
blue of the sky seemed to come to my aid, my stubbed toe was helpful, the
yellow of the hills.

After that, I could answer the teacher’s questions, and
the teacher finally passed me on “No.”

PROGRAMS

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Great Spring Sesshin May 20-27

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We hold our retreats at St. Dorothy’s Rest in Camp Meeker at Lydia House, a magnificent old stone building with a hardwood floor in the main zendo and stunning views. It’s surrounded in redwoods and mist, hiking trails, and includes wonderful handmade vegetarian meals, hearthside evening dharma talks, and an afternoon of brush calligraphy practice. There are a few full-time and part-time spaces still available. Contact:gbrandt@sonic.net